What Jack Welch means by that is that all business revenue lines eventually lead to zero. Think about the graveyards of businesses: Blockbuster. Kodak. Borders. Myspace.

We can never rest on a single revenue line.

But how? What is the right market? What business ought we be in? What products and services will define the future?

Here’s a quick and easy way to get some instant feedback on what’s next.

Using a SEM/SEO keyword tool like Google Keyword Planner or Sem Rush, look at search keywords to identify future market trends. What’s interesting are the long tail keywords, down the list in the twenty-five spot or the fifty-spot depending on keyword volume. That’s where things get interesting and opportunities are identified.

Let’s look an example: beer.

Say we want to innovate in the beer market. The keyword “Beer” gets over 1.3M searches a year. Let’s look at some of the long tail keywords that are insightful in identifying new markets.

Root Beer: 27K per month
Root Beer is trending up strongly. Diversify up market with a craft, non alcoholic play?

Nonalcoholic beer: 18K per month
A lot of interest in nonalcoholic beers – could be another way to diversify up market.

Beer cheese dip: 18K per month
License your beer brand and recipie to a company making cheese products? Yum.

Sapporo Beer: 15K per month
Sapporo is a rice beer, so perhaps this is a health trend showing demand for beers that avoid gluten? A gluten free beer?

Grapefruit Beer 12K
Grapefruit beer is a German type that further fits into the health trend. It’s 2% alcohol and even has vitamin C.

If you are in the beer business, those are some great ideas. I developed those ideas in a few minutes, so a bit more time and testing could yield significant dividends. And if you do happen to end up in the dustbin of history, have a beer and get back to the Keyword Drawing Board!

If you want some help identifying new markets, let Viewstream know. We would love to help.

One other thing: once you have a new product identified, use this handy tool to define your market position.